Interesting metaphor of user experience in a non digital domain. With a bit perspective, all kind of user centered entrepreneurship can be viewed through UX glasses. And I agree, as a digital designer it's important to understand business goals, but adopting digital tools to satisfy them. Entertaining and insightful article about developing cheese products with a UX process.

Usability is not something that is cooked up in any one phase of design, but must be developed and refined throughout the entire process. Testing prototypes against real users is an essential UX activity and doing it right will generate valuable insights that support decision making. It is cost efficient to identify usability problems early in the process since refining a design in low fidelity is still cheap. You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site, someone said.

Ergonomy is an important aspect of mobile design. Users want to interact with their devices quickly and effortless in a variety of situations. I've seen people climbing rocks, riding bikes, driving boats and jogging while they read their emails. I don't recommend it, but I'm aware of it. Enabling these use cases require one hand interaction and one hand interaction must be adapted to thumbs.

Mobile user interfaces are constantly evolving since the devices are relatively new to us. Some challenges are unbeaten and some opportunities are unexplored while trends are coming and going frequently. Mobile is a vibrant medium and designers are still not unified around the basic conventions which leads to user confusion. Mapping expectations is a key to successful design but difficult to realize in a constantly changing environment. So how can we create a coherent experience over all devices where users only need to learn conventions once and apply everywhere? Find the best solutions and turn them into patterns.

We've seen them before, lists with tools for designers. But they serve a purpose, UX is growing and new tools pop up like mushrooms after rain these days. Surveys, card sorting sessions, usability tests, heat maps, wireframe design and prototyping are just a few examples of activities easily set up online if you just know where to find the right resources.

Trends play an important role in web design because people adopt frequently used patterns and expect other applications to act alike. At the same time no one can choose to use something without memorizing how it works, the procedural memory will register every interaction and build mental models. Consequently, design choices should be done carefully in order to not establish harmful patterns that will be complicated to adjust later on. So be careful what you teach your users! Here is a set of commonly used patterns that may do more harm than good in the long run.

Why are signs so important in traffic? They are recognizable and communicate rules necessary to maintain order on the streets. Steering a vehicle in high speed on a crowded highway limits the attention span and consequently crucial information must reach the driver's awareness without causing distraction. Imagine a world where all traffic signs are designed uniform and contains entirely text based information.

Using icons in the right way will have similar effects on UX, illustrating functionality, supporting intuition and streamlining navigation. The only problem is that different people, with varying expectations might interpret icons in different ways since there is no driving licence required for the web (can't wait for a fully standardized iconic language for digital design).

One way to keep the advantages of visual communication without causing any user confusion is to combine icons with text. Assuming there is enough space... If replacing the text with solely icons is the only option because of constraints, my advice is to make the icons so universal that if they were traffic signs no lives would be in danger.

Currently the market for lifestyle management services is growing and new web solutions pushing people to change behavior pop up everyday. But how do we persuade users to change behavior? Humans are by nature constantly trying to gain control over the situation, and as a result the first step is to educate users and make sure they are fully aware of the consequences a change will lead to. The next step is to make sure that users are motivated enough to put in the effort required to complete the change and that they have the ability to do it. Great, now the users are ready to go through with the change, at least mentally, but in order to go from thought to action there must be a trigger, the final push. The last step is to reward the users so they will stay committed to the new behavior. In summary the main factors of persuasive design are awareness, motivation, ability, trigger and reward.

How can your mobile device be useful in your back pocket? Internet of things is not just another buzz word; more and more products are connected and our data is constantly accessible in the cloud. Devices are more than screens, they're loaded with powerful sensors and communication technologies like fingerprint readers, cameras and bluetooth. Apps can serve users without a single tap or swipe - simply pair the devices and let them work behind the scene.

A/B testing is a quantitative method to compare two versions of web page against each other in a battle of conversion. The results will motivate design decisions and you can measure the success rather than guessing how users will respond to various versions. A/B testing is mostly suitable for fine tuning UI details when the navigation structure is already defined. I think comparing structures require more holistic measurements.

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